


a fragile sort of calm

by ooka



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/ooka
Summary: Steve makes a noise that sounds like, if you're sure.  Tony is.  He knows his place here in this game.(Tony and Steve, learning to find a balance and catching feelings in the midst of everything else)
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	a fragile sort of calm

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely post IM3 and Avengers 2 but also I just make up stuff too

"I can't keep doing this," Pepper says quietly, fiercely. She refuses to meet his eyes. "Not if you are going to keep chasing death."

"I'm not," he argues. Pepper stares him down hard. "I'm _not_ ," he repeats, insistently. "I'm just…" _Trying to save the world. Make a difference. Stop feeling like I'm the cause of it all. The beginning to an end I don't want to see._

She looks at him long and hard. "I love you," she says, and something twists in his stomachs because he knows the steel in her eyes.

"But I love myself more."

Tony can't say anything in the face of that.

  
  
  
He spends more time at the compound, after. Natasha narrows her eyes at him on day three but never says anything. He keeps strange hours in the lab. Maybe avoiding people, maybe avoiding himself. The line is hard to determine these days.

Steve waits a week before he asks, "You good?"

Tony looks blearily down at his two day old shirt, three day old sweats and empty coffee cup. "Peachy," he replies before putting his cup under the coffee maker. 

Steve hums, mild. Tony looks to him sharply, but Steve just continues chopping. 

Steve doesn't say anything as he puts the corn he's been slicing from a cob in a bowl. The silence that fills between them isn't tinged with anything. It feels like the moment after a fight, when they look at each other, sweaty and sometimes streaked in blood. Happy to both still be here, relatively okay and making it to another day.

He glances at Tony a few times as he sips another cup of coffee. Everything about Steve is bland like he knows Tony is buzzing apart, repeating, _I love myself more_ in his head if he isn't thinking about something else. Carefully not pushing or pulling, just existing. 

Tony's grateful for it, but would also like a distraction.

He's about to duck out, back to the new schematics he's looking at for SI. A new chip because Pepper had been complaining about negotiations with other companies and supply chain dynamics. He had filed it away because she had been so frustrated in those weeks leading up to their break up, and now working on it stings faintly, but it's still something to solve. Something he _can_ solve.

Then Steve asks, "Would you like to stay for dinner? It's just some chicken dish I found a recipe online."

Tony sits, and Steve begins narrating something about how he found this recipe and how corn reminds him of summer in the '40s. His mother's love of corn chowder and how it would last for days and days. Tony eases through the conversation, through dinner, through the clean up after.

He doesn't say thank you at the end, just mentions going to bed, and Steve smiles at him, a lopsided tiny thing. "Sounds good Tony."

He thinks Steve knows it anyway.

  
  
  
"My dad was an asshole," he offers one night. The sun has long set, but Tony lingered after dinner and washing up, just talking with Steve, who kept going, like he had no where else to be as they migrated to one of the many sitting areas in the compound. 

Steve carefully takes him in, holding his tea in two hands, even though it's still warm and humid outside, and they have opened the windows. It's summer at its height. 

"Thanks for not holding him against me," Tony tacks on when the silence hangs too long, looking down to the scraps of paper with a treadmill sketched out on it. Something a super soldier could maybe use.

"At first, you reminded me of too many bullies who beat me up when I was smaller," Steve murmurs. Tony glances at him, and Steve is looking at him, a smile on his lips, wry with history only he knows. "I've always been ready for a fight."

Tony chuckles, nodding. "I'm pretty good at talking my way into trouble. Always have been."

"And out," Steve adds. "You can talk your way out too."

Tony thinks of _not if you are doing to keep chasing death_ when he says, "Not always."

Steve just takes a sip of his tea, and they sit there for a long moment before Tony starts talking him through his latest iteration on this chip that isn't pushing out enough processing power. The hardware team is ready to run with it, but Tony's not convinced until he gets it perfect.

  
  


They stumble across each other a lot, their own routines intersecting until they settle into this thing where Tony will stroll into the kitchen for dinner on the days Steve isn't on a mission. Steve will cook for them both, and they will chat about their days, new ideas Tony has had, just little things.

Steve laughs at Tony's jokes. Is able to pull details about his past out of him, but never asks why he is at the compound and not the tower. 

They just exist in ever circling orbits that sometimes intersect, day in and day out. 

It's something Tony's never had before, and he leans into wanting this new fragile, familiar routine more than he should. But Steve says nothing, just smiles at him every time he sees Tony come in.

He gets comfortable (in the routines, in looking for Steve and finding him looking at him already, in so many small things) over the months that slowly down the line, and then gets uncomfortable with that.

Typical Tony, is something Rhodey would say, shaking his head and laughing at him, if he would bring it up to Rhodey.

He keeps it close, worries about wanting to keep it close, and then pushes it aside and goes with the flow. 

  
"You gonna ask?" Tony asks him, once. The chip is handed off, the treadmill pieces are being built in the lab, and now he's poking around trying to find another project. So instead he's hijacking Steve's comms during a low level "whatever this new division of SI, er, the Avengers thing because you know, _tax purposes_ " mission to take down some HYDRA cells and providing support.

(Steve had laughed when he had come on comms, just before he leap out of a plane, and Tony tries to not memorize how the way the laugher had melted into the whoosh of the air. The agent on the other line, and then Hill, hadn't been so happy.) 

Steve's voice echoes through the comms oddly, and Tony scribbles a note to look into that. "You'll tell me if you want to." On camera, Steve makes a run for it, and then leaps over the edge of a fence, easily clearing the barbed wire. 

Tony pulls up the schematics, tugging them from behind five billion other windows that he really needs to clean up, but whatever. "Okay, the lab is on the third floor. You've got about five heat signatures between you and the stairwell, which is on your right by the way, third door. If you wait about forty second and you can make the way in less than a minute, you'll slip in without anyone seeing you."

"Cameras?" Steve questions lowly. 

Tony would laugh if he wasn't insulted that Steve had to ask. "You think I don't own them already? Really? I thought you knew me, Steve."

Steve huffs a laugh and waits a beat before he takes off for the doors. Tony watches the camera with half an eye as the 3D model of the building and surrounding area tracks Steve's movements (blue for his tracker, always blue) against the bright red glow of the other heat signatures.

He makes it up the stairs to the second floor before a silent alarm trips, and Tony curses. "Fuck, three on the landing."

Steve doesn't have time to respond, just rams the door, throwing it off it's hinges, taking two thirds of the welcoming crew down with it. He throws the shield, and it when it goes wide against the third, the man preps to take a shot before the shield bounces off a wall and hits him in the back of the head.

Tony clocks the five original heat signatures moving back towards the building. Steve's picked up shield and working on knocking out the two guys left. Tony just says, "five incoming" as Steve takes down the last guy before the door busts open with the five come running into the room. 

Steve sighs, lowly, before calling out, "I really don't want to fight you" as he puts his hands up. Tony snorts on the line, and the corner of Steve's mouth kicks up, just barely, but Tony's got the cameras trained on him from multiple angles, tracking any motion in the room and altering him to it in bright orange circles, so of course he catches it.

The leader of the group shoots, and Steve drops down, shield out front, as he runs for the nearest table. Sparks fly, and Tony watches as Steve calculates the angle and then throws the shield out, taking the legs out of three of the guys. Their shots go wild, and it takes out one of the two remaining upright guys. Steve is already running at the last one, who can't take a shot as Steve leaps on the tables, then kicks off a pillar and throws an arm around the guy's throat as he spins until he lands behind the guy. The other man struggles for a moment before the oxygen deprivation becomes too much. 

One of the three is getting up, so Steve drops the guy in his arms carelessly and slams a knee into guy's jaw. He collapses, and the other two upright guys look at each other and the one guy moaning about the bullet that his his bulletproof vest. They grab the guy and start dragging him out. 

Steve turns away from them and scoops up the shield. Tony keeps an eye out, and one guy looks back and lines up a shot at Steve's head. "Behind," Tony barks, and Steve throws the shield up, and the shot pings loudly off the vibranium. 

When he pulls down the shield, the guys are already in the stairwell, moving downwards. 

"There is always one who just wants to try his luck," Steve mutters, and Tony knows the sentiment well. Instead, he throws a tracking program on them so he can get a shot of their faces under the mask and drop off their location to the local authorities. People who play soldier in gigs like this usually have a wrap sheet a mile long, so it would be good to get them off the street anyway. 

"Second door on the left," Tony states, fingers clicking on the keyboard as Steve's steps echo through the comms. "And god, I have to work on this comm system. How is this hardware being used in some division of my company, really."

"It's better than what SHIELD had," Steve mutters and Tony mock gasps.

"You never _told me_ ," he cries. "Steven, I thought we were friends! You know I have a compulsive need to fix terrible technology."

Steve glances at the nearest camera and rolls his eyes before putting a hand on the door knob. "Three inside, cameras look like two scientists and someone strapped to the table. Room must be soundproofed because they didn't react to your fight at all."

The man on the table is angled away, but has long shaggy brown hair and is muzzled. Tony's seen the pictures of Barnes in DC. It's the same kind of mask. 

Steve turns the door and the first person squawks before Steve can elbow him to the face and the second scientist runs at a table and clicks a button.

Tony catches it later, the machine hooked up to the IV cord to the man on the table pushes something into the IV. The man starts writhing, but when he looks up, his brown eyes are wide and dilated. It's not Barnes, but it's still horrifying to watch as he begins to age, veins pulsing like he is screaming but no sound coming out. He dies quickly.

Steven's taken the second guy out viciously and is running across the room to the man on the table, panicked. "it's not him. It's not him," Tony repeats as Steve comes to a stop and reaches out. 

The heart monitor is flatlining, an angry noise. Steve looks up to the camera, frustration written in every line of his face, and Tony thinks, maybe uncharitably, _thank God, he's human._ It's relief that fills him, hot and burning down his back until it settles somewhere in his stomach. 

"We'll find him," Tony says, quietly. "But it's good he isn't here. That he wasn't strapped down to that bench."  
  
"Yeah," Steve replies, after a long long time. He looks down at the guy on the slab, withered away until he looks over 200 years old, barely skin and bones. He sounds far away, and Tony knows it's not the comms this time. "Yeah."  
  
"Come home Steve," Tony urges, and Steve glances up at the camera again. 

Something in his face eases, lines erasing themselves as he unclenches himself. "Yeah," he murmurs. "That sounds good."

Tony begins to ramble, updating on the treadmill situation he has been tinkering with, because this is what happens when he doesn't sleep and doesn't have Steve around to bully him into keeping normal hours _not that it's your job,_ he adds, higher pitched for a second before Steve chuckles as he makes his way back to the extraction location. They debate about treadmills and stationary bikes before Steve finally admits that he's the one who broke the last three treadmills in the compound before he's given up and just started running outside. 

Steve looks to the camera before he gets into the car with the "really Maria, what are we calling this division because if you don't name it soon I will and you will _regret it_ " agent is using to pick him up. He nods, quietly, and Tony just grins, even though Steve can't see it.

He turns the comms off, leaves the tracking program running and the camera's trailing the car to the airfield, but he turns, already sketching ideas in the air to FRIDAY who begins to shape them into something that looks like an in ear comms system, rattling off facts about what's on the market.

Tony never believed that Steve was inhuman, but he's too good. Always right. And something in Tony itches at that. Wants to play the other side, prove Steve to be human. That he is fallible.

But his foil isn't Tony. It's Barnes.

Tony snorts before tightening the screw on the treadmill prototype, of course it's Barnes.

He pushes down the bitter feeling and makes sure to smile too brightly at Steve when he comes back.

Steve is back for a week before he begins to look edgy without anything to do. It's not like it used to be, and Tony almost feels like Steve's prepping to run out on a mission again, chase a ghost. But there aren't any leads right now, and Wanda needs Steve's calm patience to balance out Natasha's relentless pace. 

"So there's this kid in Queen's," Tony says, one afternoon, when he steps into the gym.

Steve's head snaps up from where he's testing the pace on the latest SI treadmill. The Board loves that they are getting into fitness equipment. Pepper just leveled a glance across the table at him. 

They can exist in the same room now. It's been nearly 8 months, but Tony doesn't seek her out. Is letting her set the pace this time. He's a whirlwind, he knows, too big for his own skin most days. Instead he seeks out Steve, someone who can match him blow for blow and calm him down until his own skin fits right. 

It says something, he knows, how comfortable he is with Steve now. He pushes the thought away, and keeps his gaze on Steve. 

"He's got some super strength, likes spiders and wears sweats, or maybe pajamas. I'm not sure," Tony continues. Steve watches him, intently, and Tony tries to think about that either. "It's driving me nuts. I made him a suit."

Steve grins, and it's the first one that doesn't look like it's been forced since he came back. _Don't do this,_ Tony thinks fiercely. _Don't notice these details_. 

Noticing is always the beginning of the problem.

"I'm too conspicuous, but I was thinking you could use some of that Cap charm to either convince him to leave this to the professionals or at least gear him up."

Steve slows the treadmill to a stop, pulling up his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. Tony averts his eyes from the cut of Steve's hips, the glistening of his abs. He looks up to tread of the treadmill and sees it already looks a little worn and hisses. Steve chuckles at the reaction. "Always working the problem Tony."

"There's always something to fix," Tony replies, coming in closer to examine the tread. "FRIDAY, we need to work on the belt. We fucked something up."

" _We_ boss?" she retorts, and Tony curses the fact that he once thought he liked personality in his AIs. 

Steve's laughter echoes in the empty gym, so Tony regrets it a little less. He's missed Steve's laughter in the past week, been trying to coax it out of him for a while. 

"You sure you don't want to come with?" Steve asks, leaning against another treadmill as he has watched FRIDAY and Tony banter back and forth about sass levels and being sent off to be the test project for the incoming interns for the next summer. 

Tony gives him a wan smile. "I'm not the popular one these days." They've talked about Ultron a little, but Tony can still see the look in Wanda's eyes. The pile of bodies. His mistakes haunting his every step, even years later. 

Instead, he keeps to the shadows more, no suits out and about. He plays the other side of this game, like this, with the comms and support and leaving out new types of gear in the locker room that "isn't really a locker room come on Tony". He does the clean up stuff, the philanthropy thing. 

Steve makes a noise that sounds like, _if you're sure_. Tony is. He knows his place here in this game.

The kid loves Steve, like Tony knew he would. It's that Cap charm. Tony rattles this off to Steve smugly when he comes back to tell Tony what happened. 

(They both know Tony had cameras on them, but Tony still likes to hear what Steve caught. His impressions.)

But when the kid bounces into the compound and sees Tony leaning casually in the kitchen, drinking some coffee, he goes, " _Mr._ _Stark?"_ in a voice that sings with something else, Steve just meets his eyes and grins.

Tony rubs a hand behind his head, caught off guard a little bit. He had wanted to be here to see the kid in person, but had expected suspicion instead...this. "It's Tony," he offers. "Heard we were training the next generation."

The lens on the suit get large for a second, taking in the empty room, before narrowing to slits. "But Cap said you were the one who decided to recruit me."

Tony looks to Steve, who is still smiling, pleased with himself. "He said that huh?" He asks aloud. But the kid is off to the races, rattling off facts and figures and discussing the new suit and some fight he had last week with a crocodile.

"Wait, a crocodile?" Tony repeats, and he watches as Steve's brow furrows before looking at the kid, with his wide arms and explaining how he stumbled across this doctor turned human sort of crocodile in the sewers.

Tony has many questions, and maybe even a few, after, for Steve.

  
  
  
  


Steve leans into his space, and Tony doesn’t flinch, not exactly, but he pulls back.

Steve's brow furrows as he looks at Tony. "Tony," he says voice, low. 

Tony swallows down anything with meaning, any real words. He doesn't make eye contact and begins to explain the new modifications to the suit, "So you keep doing night missions and red, white and, blue really aren't great for that."

He continues in more detail than Steve needs, but it keeps other words at bay. Things he can't say. Things he won't say.

Steve glances at him from time to time, brow still furrowed like he is trying to figure it out. 

Tony hopes he doesn't.

  
  
  
  


They are friends, and Tony has so few friends.

It takes a year before Pepper reaches out and says, "We're still friends, you know."

Tony doesn't say anything like, _I wasn't sure_ or _I was pretty sure you got Happy and Rhodey in the divorce._

Instead, he smiles, a small and barely anything really for the video call, "of course."

She stares at him for a moment, eyes heavy because Tony thinks she knows him better than he knows himself. He still feels at sea sometimes, running from one project to another without any real plan. Always in a hurry, heart in his throat like he won't be able to balance it.

Her hand tightens on his bicep and she just says, "I've missed you."

It doesn't feel like breaking apart to admit he has too. The world keeps spinning. No supervillains pop up. It actually feels anticlimactic. 

"Call me," she urges. 

"Okay," he replies, because he's never been able to say no to her.

  
  
  


He calls three weeks later while Steve is in the air, flying commercial to stay under the radar even though Tony tried to get him on the jet. 

"Why won't he just take what I offer him? What's mine is his," and Pepper sighs as Tony hurries to add, "it's like that for all of the Avengers."

"We worked to separate you from the Avengers, from Ironman, after that first lawsuit. Remember?"

Tony closes his eyes against the mother screaming _he would be alive if it wasn't for you_. Against the way Wanda looks out a window sometimes, fear deep in her eyes. Against the, what is it Nat says? Oh, the red in his ledger.

"Tony?" She asks, because Pepper always knew when he was lost. 

"Tell me a story," he demands and she doesn't say no to him, not about this. Just tells him about her meeting with the chairman on the house vote later in the week they think is to target SI.

Tony breathes, just existing, until he can get his head on straight again. He still feels like he is on the edge though, unable to stop staring down the edge of a cliff.

Steve lands, comms him, and Tony hurries a goodbye to Pepper.

"Hey," he says.

Steve hums for a moment, before quietly telling him the story about some kids who tried to pull everyone in earshot into singing "Let it Go". Steve had had to hurriedly look up the lyrics before they set their eyes on him.

It just takes one story before Tony feels settled again, discussing the next steps and joking with Steve like he's right there. 

_Oh,_ Tony thinks for a brief second, before focusing on what Steve is asking.

Oh.

  
  
  
  
"You," Pepper pauses for a moment. And Tony closes his eyes against what he knows she is going to say next.

"I know," he replies, sharp and short and to the point.

He sighs then and repeats, softer, sort of defeated, "Yeah I know."

Pepper hums. "You usually aren't this in touch with your feelings."

"I am with coworkers."

"I was a coworker, and you were _not_ ," she counters.

He hadn't been but still argues the point. She lets him for a moment, remind him of all the dates and how it had hurt. They've talked about this before, eons ago, a lifetime ago. He's apologized but now it's just a story of their past.

He wonders when he'll just be a story Steve tells other people.

"When are you going to tell him?" She asks. "I know you like grand gestures, so it would be nice to know what to watch out for."

He thinks about the rabbit, the way she had looked at him, aghast. The way he had almost killed her.

He keeps his mouth shut and the silence hangs between them for a long time.

"Tony," she states, quiet.

"Pepper," he retorts, matching her tone.

She breathes for a moment before saying, "You deserve to be happy."

He thinks about the way she had looked at him, so tired. Exhausted by his very existence. 

"I'm good being Tony Stark and not his driver," he replies. She doesn't laugh.

It's not a good joke anyway.

She lets him turn the topic back to the next meeting with the board and the impending regulation on the horizon. Tony focuses on that and not the tracker blinking out of the corner of his eye, showing Steve in the kitchen. Doesn't touch the keyboard to pull up the video.

  
  
  
  


(He goes down after the call ends though. Steve greets him with his steady sort of joy, familiar, like a well worn path in a forest.

 _I am happy_ , he thinks.

It rings true.

It's not something he is willing to risk.)

  
  
  
Tony ends a call as Steve strolls in, still sweaty and a towel being rubbed against his head. He looks at Tony fondly. "You've been talking to Pepper more," he offers because Steve always notices.

Tony shrugs, "We've got some road bumps coming up and are trying to strategize how to handle it." Steve looks at him concerned and Tony waves his hands, "It's the ebbs and flow of business. Do too well and people try to target you. We're pushing the timelines on publicizing some community projects we have been working on, announcing a new compliance subgroup, boring stuff."

"Are you," Steve pauses for a moment. "Would it help if you were seen out and about with Captain America? If there were pictures to kick up some good press?"

He's earnest in his want to offer a solution, twisting the towel in his hands as he looks to Tony.

Tony feels impossibly fond. "I would rather be caught with my friend Steve."

Steve's grin is a helpless sort of blinding thing, but it fades when Tony says, "But Pepper, and I've got it."

"Of course," he replies before giving his review on the latest version of the treadmill, about the jerking in the belt when he goes to level 20 or beyond.

Tony doesn't get a chance to ask before he's debating improvements, mind whirring away at the next version, a better version.

  
  
  
"You good?" Steve asks one night.

Tony looks up from where he has been sketching out a few designs for a stationary bike with a napkin and a couple scraps of paper. Steve sets down a mug of coffee, because he's used to this now, after months in the compound together. 

Steve knows him, Tony knows. Knows his well worn patterns, his habits. Knows the parts of Tony he keeps close to his chest. 

He smiles when he says, "yeah", a rueful sort of thing. He really means it.

Steve smiles back, small and pleased. "Good," he states.

They sit there, quiet while Tony works and Steve watches him work. He looks up once and catches Steve watching him. He grins and they both laugh before Tony starts explaining the bike idea.

  
  
  
Tony strolls into the kitchen a few weeks later, and there's Pepper standing there, sharing a cup of coffee with Steve. Tony had been in there 30 minutes earlier, drinking a smoothie and stealing bites of Steve's "too large even for him" frittata. Tony had been teasing him about how he stunk post morning run around the compound, and Steve has just told him to be thankful it wasn't the middle of summer.

Steve's hair is wet, post shower, and he's quietly asking Pepper questions while he cleans the dishes. When he looks to Tony, because of course he caught Tony's entrance, he smiles, a small little thing in comparison to an hour earlier.

Tony almost asks _what has she said to you_ but Pepper's smile is brilliant and distracting. "Tony!" She cries and puts her cup down before pulling him into a hug.

"You just talked to me yesterday Pepper. What the hell?" He protests, even as his hands grip the back of her blazer tight enough to wrinkle. He knows she could complain if she wasn't doing exactly the same thing.

"I haven't seen you in person in a while," she replies when she finally pulls back. Her eyes shine. "You look good."

 _You look happy_ he hears between the lines and his eyes dart to Steve who is carefully not looking their ways, but Pepper catches it like she does everything else and her grin widens. 

"You look as beautiful as ever, and you know I'm always better at showing up on time if we do video calls," he returns, and she's glowing as she laughs at him. They may be marching off to war, but she's happy. A weight lifted off her shoulders, and it hurts, just a little, to know that is what he had become to her in the later days hurts, but in a distant sort of way.

Her face says her thanks, even as she utters, "Now we have to go or we'll be late and before you ask, no you can not get into the suit and fly me across the city. Never again."

Tony plays it up, slumps and calls out, "But I thought you loved being flown around!" even though they both know she had hated it. He whirls to Steve and says, "You like it when you fly with me, right Steve?"

Steve, who had been carefully putting away the plate from earlier, looks up, startled. "Um," he starts and it hangs, awkward like it hasn't been for a while. Not between them. "Uh."

Tony can feel his eyebrows furrow and starts, "Steve, what-" when Pepper's phone beeps.

He looks to her and she says, "I'm so sorry but we have to go Tony."

She turns to Steve and adds, *Thanks for the coffee and keeping me company while I was waiting for Tony."

"Of course," Steve replies, tone off and Tony wants to stand his ground and ask _what is going on_ because he can be late. He is always late. He can take the suit and call Pepper and make it across town, and it won't be a problem.

Steve turns to him, oddly distant in his gaze. "I wish you the best," he says, off and wrong.

Tony lets Pepper pull him out of the room, before hissing, "What did you say to him?"

"Nothing," Pepper says, looking down to her phone. When she meets his eyes a moment later, she insists, "Nothing. I just asked how you were doing and he told me about the gym equipment projects. I was only there for five minutes before you came in."

Tony's mouth twists and he watches the compound as the car drives away, wondering _what are you thinking Steve?_

Steve's gone when he comes back. _Off on a mission_ Sam says, when Tony tracks him down.

When Tony looks up the trackers it blinks slowly in Steve's room. Tony goes into the room, after knocking for five minutes, and the tracker sits on the nightstand with a note.

_Got a lead, be back soon._

Tony takes them both when he leaves the room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

  
  
  
Steve isn't back for weeks.


End file.
